A biological polymer refers to a general term of a sugar chain, glycoprotein, glycopeptide, peptide, oligopeptide, protein, nucleic acid, lipid or the like.
Furthermore, these biological polymers play an importance role in biotechnology fields such as medical science, cell engineering, organs and medical engineering and the like. To clarify the control mechanism of the biological reaction using these substances is related to the development in the biotechnology fields.
Of these biological polymers, a sugar chain is extremely rich in its diversity, and is a substance participating in various functions of an organism present in the nature. The sugar chain is present as glycoconjugate bonded to protein, lipid or the like in vivo in many cases, and is one of important components in vivo. It has become clear that the sugar chain in vivo is deeply related to information transfer between cells, regulation of functions or interaction of protein, and the like.
Incidentally, the term “sugar chain” refers to a generic term of a chain of molecules coupled with monosaccharide such as glucose, galactose, mannose, fucose, xylose, N-acetylglucosamine, N-acetylgalactosamine, sialic acid or the like and a derivative thereof by a glycosidic bond.
Examples of the biological polymer having a sugar chain include proteoglycan of a cell wall of a plant cell contributing to the stability of cells, glycolipid affecting cell differentiation, population growth, adhesion, migration or the like, glycoprotein taking part in intercellular interaction or cellular recognition and the like. A mechanism of the sugar chain contained in these biological polymers of controlling a high-precision biological reaction while acting for, helping, amplifying, regulating or hindering functions mutually with the biological polymer has been gradually made clear. Furthermore, when the relationship between such a sugar chain and cell differentiation, population growth, cell adhesion, immunity and a malignant change (cancer) in cells becomes clear, a new development can be expected to be planned by closely relating this sugar chain engineering to the medical science, cell engineering or organs and medical engineering.
In Patent Document 1, there have been described a substance capable of specifically reacting with such a sugar chain and a method of separating a sugar chain by using the substance as well.
Patent Document 1: International Publication Pamphlet No. 2004/058687